Zee Entertainment Enterprises Ltd. (ZEE) on Wednesday said that it is supporting the initiative of Cellular Operators Association of India (COAI) by temporarily disabling the streaming of LIVE TV GEC channels on its digital entertainment platform – ZEE5. In order to optimise the bandwidth, the company has also ensured that all the High Definition (HD) content offered on ZEE5 will be switched to Standard Definition (SD), it said in a statement.
“We appreciate this step taken by COAI and have extended our complete support. Apart from serving lower bit rate content, we also believe that disabling the streaming of LIVE TV Channels on digital platforms for a temporary time frame will save a substantial amount of internet bandwidth,” said Punit Goenka, MD & CEO, ZEE Entertainment Enterprises Ltd said.
In fact, we also believe that streaming of objectionable obscene content or pornographic content consumes enough bandwidth and should be curbed during such challenging times across the digital ecosystem, he added. “Strict action should be taken by the authorities against platforms which are streaming such content which is leading to bandwidth constraints,” said Goenka.
“In line with the company’s advice, ZEE5, as a responsible video streaming player, has committed itself to undertake preventive measures which would collectively help the Government of India and the entire ecosystem overcome this unprecedented situation caused due to the COVID-19 outbreak,” it said. ZEE5 strongly believes that in order to optimise the bandwidth consumption, audiences should switch to video-on-demand content rather than streaming LIVE TV channels, it added.